DFS: Di Bari | Fort Worth Invitational Picks

I’m not going to bore you to death with course data, but if you are looking for key stats and a course breakdown, Matt Jones covered those items earlier in the week. I’m going to be heavily focused on accuracy off the tee this week, as well as bogey avoidance and Greens in Regulation (GIR). The weather looks clear for the most part with a small chance of rain possible on Thursday, so it shouldn’t be a factor this week. With that in mind here are my picks for the Fort Worth Invitational at Colonial Country Club.

PICKS

Currently, 14th on tour in driving accuracy, CT Pan ($7,300) is someone I look at any time I hear accuracy off the tee. Pan is also 14th in GIR and within the top-100 in bogey avoidance. He hasn’t played particularly amazing this year thus far and did miss the cut here last year, and there are other options right at his $7,300 price point, all of which should keep his ownership low and make him worthy of a dart throw in GPPs.

Likely to be one of the highest owned players this week, Argentinian Emiliano Grillo ($8,600) is coming into this tourney in excellent recent form with three top-10 finishes in his last seven tournaments, and 2 in his previous 4. His only missed cut this year was at Zurich about a month ago, and given its team format, I’m not counting it against him or his stats. Grillo has a decent course history here with a T24 and a T55 in two tries, and he looks to improve on those finishes this year. Grillo is also 17th on the tour in driving accuracy, 18th in GIR, and 16th in bogey avoidance. He’s going to be higher owned, and rightfully so.

Brian Harman ($7,800) is still leading the PGA with seven top-10 finishes after a hot start to the season. He’s played well here at Colonial Country Club too, with respective finishes of T7, T25, T10, and T30 over the last four years. Harman is also 21st in driving accuracy and 22nd in GIR and is top-50 in bogey avoidance. He’s coming off of a missed cut at THE PLAYERS, but prior to that, he hasn’t missed a cut since January.

Another accurate driver of the ball this week, Russell Henley ($7,300) is currently ranked 15th on tour in that category. Hendley is 37th in GIR and has averaged 2.61 strokes gained on Texas courses. Henley has missed two straight cuts but hasn’t missed 3 in a row since March of 2016, so I’m looking for that streak to come to an end this week in Fort Worth. Preceding the missed cuts, he finished T15 at The Masters and T8 at The Houston Open.

A player who seems to be under the radar this season is Adam Hadwin ($7,600). Hadwin has yet to miss a cut this year and has scored par or better in 9 of his last 10 tournaments played. He has finished T53, T22, and T5 here in 3 tries, so the course history is fine, but trending in the wrong direction a bit. Hadwin is currently ranked 58th in driving accuracy, 25th in GIR and 54th in bogey avoidance.

With the money you can save with the previous players, you can splurge near the top this week. The second highest priced player this week is John Rahm ($11,000), and he’s my pick among this group after a T2 here last year with two rounds of 66 mixed in. Rahm isn’t among the leaders in accuracy off the tee (sitting at 129th on tour), but it didn’t seem to affect him last year, and there is no reason to believe it will this year either. Rahm is 23rd in GIR and 38th in bogey avoidance, and despite distance off the tee being important here, as a shorter course, Rahm can bomb away and then hit short wedges into these greens all weekend.